ON TEST
14 Australian Hi-Fi http://www.avhub.com.auT
hey’re back—HiFI Man’s
award-winning Edition X
headphones been revamped
in a ‘Version 2’, with the
delightful side-effect of
the Version 2 model being
rather lower in price than
the original. We had initially been told the
changes were primarily aesthetic, but in fact
they’re also ergonomic, with a more versatile
headband for a better fi t, thicker earpads
with a much more pronounced angle front to
back, a switch to polyester from velour (still
with pleather) for the part which touches
your head, and entirely new cables—where
these were previously braided, the new cables
seem almost medical in their translucent
white (see accompanying photographs), so
that you half expect a stethoscope to be on
the end, instead of the 2.5mm microjack
plugs that connect into each headshell. The
fi rst cable is 1.5-metres long and terminates
in a magnifi cently solid right-angled stereominijack, ideal for those portable purposes...
though lacking in-line controls. For home
use, a separate cable with a properly bonded
quarter-inch (6.35mm) plug is also in the
box, with a full three-metre-long cable.
The headphones themselves remain beau-
tifully and pleasingly personally presented, in
high-quality packaging with plush internals
and a series of cards with stamped serial num-
bers and a friendly invitation to stay in touch
with Hi-FiMan in Tianjin.
These are sizeable headphones, with
130mm-high headshells that are asymmet-
ric in being shaped like ears—which always
strikes us as sensible design. Build quality
is high; they swivel on internally invisible
hinges and have an unusually high and
wide but very light headband; they weigh
399-grams but once on your head they are
among the most comfortable headwear we’ve
had the pleasure of donning, their earcups
not so much coddling as cuddling your head.
With the adjustable headstrap tilted to thevery top of our skull, there was almost no
sense of wearing these headphones at all.
Wonderful.PLANAR DELIGHTS
These are not conventional cone head-
phones, but rather planar magnetic driv-
ers—far lighter diaphragms, with conductors
distributed through the surface rather than
driving from behind. This more-uniform
driving of a lighter diaphragm is credited
with lower distortion and improved high fre-
quency resolution, something entirely borne
out in their sound. Sometimes a revised
model of a well-reviewed headphone can dis-
appoint—but not the HiFiMan Edition X V2.
They again proved simply riveting in their
resolving power; it’s like having super-vision
through your ears. Every track is a thrill, with
even old favourites rendered fresh and shiny.
Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson sounded
spectacularly tight and sharp-edged—the
emphasis of the centre-channel guitar inHIFIMAN
EDITION
HEADPHONES